


Five Memories

by LionessContessa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 14:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4567770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LionessContessa/pseuds/LionessContessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niamh Hawke and Varric learn each other throughout their time in Kirkwall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seeing Me (Capernoited)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fortheloveofhawke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofhawke/gifts).



Sneaking was such an unfortunate word.  Rats sneak. Gamlen sneaks. Hawke was merely moving in a stealthy manner.  And better, she was doing _good_ things while moving in said stealth. Quality things. Her mother would be proud.

Well, less disappointed than normal.

At least not as disappointed as this morning.  Well there was no fun in thinking about that. 

Hawke tossed up a quill from the desk and balanced it across her nose. She’d think good things, positive things, very-un-Hawke-things.

“Enjoying the simple pleasures?”

Varric moved through the small space in between the open door and shut it with a barely audible click. His eyes flickered to the ale bottles piled in the corner.  “As opposed to staying on your toes.”

Hawke flipped the feather from her nose and pointed it at her friend.  “You’re late.”

“I brought the scissors.” He held up a pair in one hand and a bottle in the other. “And ale.”

Hawke couldn’t help her grin, light headed as she already was. “My hero.”

“I like the sound of that. Varric Tethras, Hero of Kirkwall.” Varric tossed Hawke the bottle and took a seat in the small chair across from her.  The past few months had been good to Varric, although she couldn’t think of anyone the boon from the Deep Roads hadn’t helped.  A new duster, black to mix in with the night sky and very sleek, sat on his shoulders. And, if she wasn’t mistaken, a curious ruby had found itself placed in the center of his earring. 

Hawke approved +15.

“Hero of Kirkwall, Writer of Audacious Smut, Runner from Spiders.” She snickered around the tip of the bottle. “You’ve gained so many titles, Varric.  I’m too proud.”

Varric frowned. “Don’t joke about spiders, Hawke.” He reached out his hand. “Pass me an ordinance.”  Hawke couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her. Stupid, old, beautiful, wonderful ale. 

Slipping her hands into her belt she felt around for the papers she had already found.  She couldn’t wait to give Anders the next three locations of mage ‘raids’.  In return she hoped he’d leave those little poultices that exploded and smelled like a cross between skunk spray and spider guts at each scene.  What she wouldn’t pay to see Cullen scrubbing ruddy tomatoes all over himself.

“Hawke.” She looked up, fingers still splayed around her belt to find Varric staring at her waist.

Well shit.

She did her best to let out a seductive shoulder wiggle, which probably looked something more like a blood mage’s shivering, twitching surge of power. That is to say not seductive. 

“Why Varric,” She shifted to let the cloak around her shoulders fall in front of her center.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

“Trying to learn human anatomy, Varric?—“ Hawke attempted her most charming grin. “Because according to Madame Lusine you’re already quite familiar with it.”

Varric’s eyebrow twitched and an imaginary hand patted her on the shoulder. +15 approval from Hawke to Hawke.

“Your topic change isn’t working, Hawke.” Varric tossed her a pair of scissors and stack of papers from Cullen’s desk.  “If you think I’m ignoring the slew of health potions strapped to your waist then I’m Anders and a pro-templar feast.”

“That’s not as infeasible as you think.” She reached out a hand for another stack of ordinances—non belt ones that was and hissed when Varric hit the back of her hand with his. “He’d go just to tear the building to the ground with them in it.”

“Not. Working.” Varric tsked sounding far too much like her mother.

“She’s my sister, Varric.” She smirked. The sound of crunching paper paused as Varric put down his scissors and stared at her. “Did you really think I was going to let these Templar bastards keep her from me, from mother?”

“I thought you’d have enough sense not to walk face first into a Templar’s sword!” He said too loudly.  Far too loudly, actually, considering they were hiding in a building full of Templar’s, cutting up important documents and shaping them into—she leaned over the table to see what Varric had made out of his pile of tranquility requests— a line of gingerbread men holding hands.

The thought of Bethany, eyes cast down being led out of Gamlen’s small shack felt like ash sprinkled in her eyes.  She attempted to shake the image with a smile that hurt her face.

“Come on, Varric. You know I don’t have a lick of common sense.”

Varric’s hand reached back towards Bianca, and had Hawke not been in weekly bar fights with the dwarf since last year she might not have seen it.  Just a wiggle of his fingers and he could have Bianca over his shoulders and Hawke with an unfortunate bolt pinning her to the wall. 

Not exactly part of her plans tonight.

Her fingers slipped inside of her cloak, not nearly as deftly as Varric had, but then again she wasn’t trying to be subtle. 

“We can figure this out, Hawke.” He chuckled, fingers still hovering above Bianca’s grip. “You know, when you’re not drunk and we have an actual plan.”

“I have a plan!” She slipped a dagger from her waist.

“Other than get Bethany out at any cost necessary.” His eyes narrowed and his damn fingers kept twitching. 

“You don’t understand. She’s my sister.”

“And Bartrand’s my brother. But you don’t see me throwing away my life trying to catch him.” Varric took a deep breath and straightened out the wrinkle in his brow. Charming Varric, honey-tongued Varric watched her curiously and his hands returned to his lap.  Which, admittedly, might have been comforting if Hawke hadn’t also known the most dangerous tool in Varric’s arsenal was his Maker given mouth.

“Let’s talk this out.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just tell me why you’re risking your life for this idiotic—“At her furious expression, Varric put up his hands. “We all love Sunshine, which is why we should do this together.”

“When?” She shot back. “When all the Templar’s have gone out for tea?”

“Just not when we have zero chance of helping Bethany, and a hundred percent chance of getting ourselves killed.”

“We?” Hawke frowned. “You’re not coming.” Varric had, for his own part, had many ridiculous ideas, but there was no way she was letting him set one, slightly tipsy foot through the Circle doors.

He shrugged. “Why not? We’ve done dumber things together.”

“I’m not letting you die for me, Varric.” Hawke’s eyes narrowed as she watched him stand and reach for Bianca.

“Come on, Hawke. You and me against all the Templars. It’d make a hell of a story.”

“Bethany wouldn’t want—“

“Is this about Bethany, or you?” Varric’s look was ice cold as she stood in front of the desk.

“She’s my sister.”

“As we’ve established.” Varric swept a few papers into his duster. “But I think we both know she wouldn’t want this for you, so why are you pushing this?”

“Because we know each other, and I know she can’t stay in there without--” Her speech ended with a crack and Hawke kicked away from the desk, feeling far too closed in the space that Cullen attempted to call his room.

“Without you?”

“I don’t know how to do any of this without her.”

“Hawke…” His face went soft in the same way it did when Merrill talked about her clan, or Anders talked about home.

“Hawke, bloody Hawke. Sometimes.” She trailed off with a despicably wet look. “Hawke isn’t a person to half the bloody people in this city. Sometimes, I just want to be Niamh.”

 “Look,” Varric crossed to her, and tugged her down until she was on her knees, and their eyes met on the same level for the first time.  Through the subtle ache in her eyes from tears unshed, she really saw his. They weren’t just brown, they were flecked with the same grey of the craggy rocks of the Wounded Coast under a rainy sky.

He kept telling her he was a liar, and even if she had not seen his eyes she still wouldn’t have believed him.

His hands came up to her shoulders as he held her still. She didn’t even know she was shaking. “What if I promise to call you Niamh when we’re alone?”

“It’s not the actual name that’s the problem, Varric.”  She moved back from him, but felt the warm alcohol sweeping through her system knocking her backwards.  Varric’s hands held her still.

“I know.” His hands were huge and warm against her. She wasn’t sure if they’d ever touched outside of gold and cards passing from hand to hand, but she found him to be solid in the same way her father was. Like a whole energy resting beside her. “The whole gang would do it in a heartbeat. All you have to do is say so.”

 “I could save her.”

“How about we focus on saving you?” She shot him a look that must have spoken to her complete incredulity. “At least for tonight. We’ll come up with a plan tomorrow to get your sister back.”

Her urge was to fight back. She was nothing if not an internal struggle lashing out to the corporeal world.  But she was something she wasn’t before, before the Deep Roads, before she lost Bethany, and Carver, and father and before her mother had started looking at her with such palpable disdain.

She was tired. Bloody, exhausted.

That made her shift away from Varric’s hands (warm hands) so that she could properly pull back the cape to find a small pack of weather beaten letters that she slipped from her side.  Those letters were getting to Bethany whatever way she could, and maybe this was a halfway point.

“Varric, pass me a pen. We’re writing Cullen a letter.”

 

 


	2. Seeing You (Baisemain)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawke really sees Varric for the first time. 
> 
> Takes place before Act Two.

\--

Hawke choked back the edge of a laugh and shot Varric her most dangerous, wide eyed look. “You would say that to the Bandit of Kirkwall?”

“Bandit?” He chuckled. “Pickpocket with a heart of gold if you ask anyone in Lowtown.”

She scoffed through her smirk and took another drink.  If, as per her suspicions, Varric had gotten this bottle from Corf she was going to have to apologize for all the times she had called his ale shrill. This tasted the very opposite of shrill, like peaches and sweet kisses, both things that had come few and far in-between during her time in Kirkwall.

Varric plucked the bottle from her fingers and took another swig.  There was something to be said for sneaking away from the cobbles of Kirkwall’s streets to the craggy rocks bordering the Wounded Coast. It wasn’t so bad when she wasn’t being chased by a small clan of angry, giant spiders, blood mages or dead people. 

She spared a look up to the bright pink, cloudless sky and down to the brush of translucent blue—orange in this light— water.  If she were the type, she might say it was a beautiful day.  If she were the Varric-y type, she might say it was the most beautiful day that Kirkwall had seen all year.

Thank goodness she wasn’t either. Hawke put her stumbling fingers—that third bottle might have been a sip too much— against the bottle under Varric’s fingers. She could use another drink. 

“You’re hogging the drink.” She smiled and felt the lightest breeze ruffle the round trim of her hair against her face and in front of her eyes. Her fingers rose immediately to remove the inky strands from her face, she was past due for a haircut at the edge of Bela’s knife, but she paused at the look on Varric’s face.

His eyes were wide.  They cast the strangest shade of gold--like the liquid at the bottom of their ale, and mixed with pink.  His mouth was wide—fly catcher style with a drop of ale still clinging to his lips—but that didn’t capture the strangeness in what she found written into his skin. 

There was wonder there, and something a shade brighter than surprise, like finding a rose in the middle of winter.  But weird, because it was Varric, and after you’ve seen Fenris and Anders running in their underthings away from a troop of reanimated dead men riding giant spiders, what was there left to see?

 Hawke turned towards the ocean, beautiful as it was, but it hadn’t changed for the past hour.

“What?” She asked. “Is it spiders—I know how you feel about spiders.” She dropped her hand from his and reached for a rock to throw. “Or if there’s one nearby and you don’t tell me again—“

The curiosity—surprise—whatever was on Varric’s face smoothed over in an instant to reveal a joking façade.  It was something she’d seen used too many times against ignorant merchants, or touchy Templars in the Alienage, but nothing she’d seen focused upon her since their first few meetings. 

“No worries,” He grinned.  His face was entirely too smug, though clearly stung. “If something comes for your hair again I’ll let you know.”

She frowned. He was clearly misremembering the traumatic incident in question.  “That spider was trying to eat me.”

“All it got was a mouthful of hair.”

“A mouthful of _me_.”

Varric chuckled and she nudged him with her foot. “Come on, what was it? I promise to not, not judge you.”

“You mean you promise to not judge me.”

She pulled the bottle from where it rested against her side and took a quick swig. It was cool, despite sitting back in the heat all day, leaving her fingers wet with residual water.“I know what I said.” She tucked the bottle by her side, but when she looked up to meet his gaze she found that expression again. This time, it was less surprised, more suspicious—and she could not mistake where it was pointed anymore. 

It was directly at her.

Hawke was noticeable, always had been, and she imagined she always would be. Admittedly, that had painted a big, Hawke shaped target on her back, but that hadn’t been more of a problem than she could handle.

And it most certainly never meant she’d been greeted with the look that was currently plaguing her friend’s face.

“If you don’t shut your mouth you really will be the first dwarven fly catcher.” She struggled to grin at him, and hoped it looked less lumpy than it felt.

“Bartrand would come back just to collect the gold.” That time his laugh was real, rich and hoarse together. It was a noise that has started to leave a warm feeling in her chest, something comforting and round that she’d missed since Bethany had been taken.

Following the feeling, and not her brain, she got up on her wobbly knees and stretched herself across the sand. Every granule felt like needles through the fabric of her pants, but she felt warm relief when she collapsed face down against his thigh. In response to his huff she pulled her head up and stuck out her tongue.

“If you want me to stop laying on you, you’ll have to stop being so comfy.” She stretched until his red tunic tickled her nose.

A gloveless hand ran across the back of her hair, smoothing in a familiar motion.  Her mother had touched her scalp many times like this, comforting and kind. But it hadn’t felt like it did just then.  She shifted to look at his face, felt the stretch of his trousers against her cheek and looked up to see—well. Varric, but not, but him, but. . .not.

It was the same Varric, same mischievous eyes, same perpetual smirk across his lips, same window of tantalizing chest hair.

Except that it wasn’t.

He was brighter, as though he’d been colored in by some magic pencil.  It made the normal red of his tunic shine with warmth and heat. The stubble of his chin was no longer a fact she knew without ever seeing, but settled in so close that she saw the shadow of it against his skin.  It might have been the halo of pink, now violet light against his back, but she realized with a jolt that she’d seen Varric a thousand times, almost every day for nearly three years, but she might not have looked at him once.

Looking at him now damn near stole her breath away.

Varric paused at her expression, and the hand that wasn’t buried in her hair fell to the bottom of her chin to pop it close with a click. He raised an eyebrow at her in a way that met her confusion with an equally confused look and a slight smile.

Hawke’s wicked grin stayed tucked in her mind. She took his hand, large and square against hers, and dragged it towards her.  His mouth opened to speak, although not some iteration of ‘what are you doing’ she was sure.  If he’d followed her into the dragon’s den, she doubted he would question the slow tug of his hand towards her face.  Her eyes flickered to his before her lips touched the back of his hand, feather light and innocent—well, at least feather light and his eyes went wide in a way that reminded her of Carver.

“Varric,” She said in her sweetest voice. “When did you get so handsome?”

For her troubles she got a swift knock across the back of her head, but it was worth it to see him blush.

 


	3. If it looks like a Hawke (Mamihlapinatapei )

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric and Hawke see each other for the first time after the battle with the Arishok.

It was too quiet at the Amell estate.

Usually, when he walked up the stilted stairs he was greeted with noise, Bodahn shouting, Sandal’s explosions, Orana’s worrying, Hawke’s. . . Well, Hawke’s something.

Once, he had ducked in through her open doorway to find her practicing knife throwing, blindfolded, with a few thieves for practice dummies.  When he’d opened the door, she had turned to face him and said, “This is exactly what it looks like”, before nailing the wall right above the littlest shit’s ear.

He walked to the door now, but he could see the windows were dark without a light in any room. If he squinted he could make out figures shuffling back and forth through the windows.  Not the uneven pacing from a month ago when he’d helped drag Hawke—

He closed his eyes and took a breath.

People said that when you’ve faced your worst fear that there was nothing left to scare you.  And yet, every time he closed his eyes he saw Hawke’s eyes on that night, blank and brown unseeing.  And he was afraid.  More so than when he was a child and found his mother on the floor in a pool of dirty ale.

The splotch on the stairs was barely discolored. Orana had probably gone at it until her fingers were raw and pink. But when he looked he remembered the blood pooling from her torso as he and Aveline had attempted to keep her together.

His hands were red. With Hawke’s blood. On his hands. And her face. What the Arishok had done to her face was seared into his mind.

His hand hovered in front of the door, again. Hesitating. Isabela had let it slip, nonchalantly of course, that Hawke woke up a week into the sleep Ander’s had cast her into three weeks ago. Then she had caught the first passage to Antiva.

Varric tried again to knock, but failed.

Perhaps another time then. If his shoulder sagged in relief, the empty streets of Kirkwall could hardly judge him.  He could be afraid of doors, with all their mad swinging and such.  It could be a lot of things other than a grown man afraid to see his—his Hawke set up in bed.

Instead, he would work. Put the money from their expeditions in order, handle Hawke’s investments and pay her taxes.  He might not be with her, but he was never far. 

Plus he could really use a drink.

“Messere,” A reedy voice called, and all the tension that bled from his shoulders returned with a vengeance. “Are you here to see Serah Hawke?” Bodahn called.

Varric turned with a grin plastered on his face. Shit. “Nah, she probably needs some sleep—“

“She actually just woke up.” Bodahn smiled congenially, but the hand with a rag cleaning out the inside of a glass pressed a bit too hard, in a manner that said ‘I’ll drag you in this house by your hair if I must, Serah. And while I will be completely polite as I pull you through the doors.  You _will_ come inside.’

Varric thought about giving him a run for his money. Not because he wanted to fight Bodahn. Nah, he may seem polite, but Varric had seen the man get Hawke into a formal dress and that proved he was a force to be reckoned with.  But the imagery of Bodahn throwing the glass at his head, hog tying him, and dragging him bodily to Hawke’s bed made him smirk.

“Serah has been asking about you since she woke up.”

Bodahn smiled brighter and his eyes closed. “Three. Weeks. Ago.” With a menacing step forward his entire fist disappeared into the glass. “Perhaps you’d like to come inside.”

Varric nodded towards the ground.  Sure, why not.  It wasn’t like this would be the worst thing that ever happened to him.  There was the thing with the spiders.  Yeah, that was going to win hands down.

His eyes drifted to the splotch on the stairs.

Probably. Probably still the spiders thing. Maybe.

 

The Amell estate was as silent on the outside as it was on the inside.  Dog was nowhere to be found.  He had been wrong about the lights, on damn near every surface was a cluster of candles.  The light was soft, but cast the darkest shadows over the red velvet chairs, and the otherwise plain furniture.

“Ah Serah Tethras,” Orana bowed slowly, but her eyes rose to meet his meaningfully. “Mistress Hawke has been asking after you.”

“So I’ve heard.”  He nodded to where Bodahn stood between him and the door. “She wouldn’t happen to be asleep, would she?”

“Mistress Hawke is still taking her afternoon nap.” She smiled. “But I’m sure she would be happy to be woken by you.  She has been anxious for company today.”

“Ah.” Varric nodded. Damn, so close. “I guess I’ll just head up now.” He glanced at the stairs. “Up all those stairs. Did I ever tell you about the time Hawke and I got trapped on a revolving staircase in the Fade? It was—“

Bodahn nodded, put both palms on Varric’s back and pushed. “We’d love to hear any story of yours. After you see Serah Hawke, that is.” With an entirely too motherly shooing motion, Bodahn made his way back to the door while Orana set off towards the garden. Perfect. What could be more perfect than seeing Hawke?

That’s exactly what he wanted. Right? Right.

His foot hovered above the stair. All he had to do, in theory, was step. Put one foot down and lift the other. It was easy. He was pretty sure he’d done it before. Numerous times, in fact, if he thought about the trip down to the Docks. Or really anywhere else in Kirkwall. But his hand was shaking and he could hardly breathe.

“Serah Tethras.” Bodahn appeared before him. “She’s not so bad anymore. Ser Anders insists that with rest she’ll be good as new in no time.” Conspiratorially, he leaned closer and whispered loudly, “She’s even making jokes again.”

Varric nodded.

“There’s no reason to be frightened.”

“Who said I’m frightened?”

“Not me, Serah.” Bodahn closed his eyes and offered that far too knowing smile. “But if you knew anyone who was, I thought you might let them know.”

“Yeah.” Varric laughed. “I’ll do that.” His foot fell on the first step. Not too bad, he knew he knew how to do it.

“I’ll leave you to your business, Serah.”

Varric took another step, easing up the stairs he had grown to know too well from too many drunken nights sleeping on the lounge in Hawke’s room.  Easy enough—

“Serah Tethras.” Bodahn said, back turned.

Varric paused on the stair and turned to the man in question. There are things being a storyteller had taught Varric, and the first thing was that when people sounded like that, when their shoulders were tight and their voice sounded like a ship about to be turned over by a wave, you listened. You listened carefully and you did _exactly_ what they said.

“Her face—“ Bodahn paused again and cleared his throat. “She’s sensitive about it. Do be kind.” Without waiting for a response, Bodahn waved without turning and made his way towards the kitchen.

Varric made his way up the creak-less stairs, and down the hall to Hawke’s room.  Even if Varric hadn’t been there a thousand times, if he hadn’t held up her slummed weight on his shoulder when she’d cried after the death of her mother, he would be able to tell this was her room.

Probably because of the nicks on the doors from the tips of daggers.  If not that, then definitely the small etching of Dog with a flower crown in the corner. Rivaini’s work if he could guess. A good likeness, too. If the pirating business didn’t work out she’d make a hell of an artist.  He started to touch it, just barely touched his finger against an errant rose and heard the door creak open.

There was a bundle of lumpy covers and a single candle, and an endless room of shadows.  The light of the hallway stretched his shadow out long, and his outcast hand reached the sphere of light surrounding Hawke’s bed. His shadow could touch her like this, but she was just barely out of reach.

Varric rubbed his knuckles against his eyes. Damn metaphors.

The candle flickered as he came closer and in the dim light he could see her prone figure on the bed.  A creeping shiver ran across his shoulders when he realized her face was turned away from the light.  He could see a bruised hand mark and scratches cross her neck from where the Arishok held her above the crowd—where he’d watched him hold her.  

There was a singular chair beside her bed that he eased into, setting his pack heavily.  She didn’t rouse at the noise, and so his hand found her forearm.

“I’m late.” Seems an adequate start.  Or some type of something at least.  Hawke woke, struggled from the Fade and turned towards the sound. 

He had seen when the Arishok’s claw had run across the paint on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.  The damage had been bloody and deep when he’d first seen it, and although the skin had been knit back together the reddened scar was a heavy reminder.  But Hawke was Hawke, with the same curve to her nose, the same heavy dark eyelashes that blinked into consciousness.

“You’re late.” Her voice was ragged with sleep and twanged loudly in the room.

“I thought I just said that.” He chuckled. His thumb rubbed wide circles into her arm and he thought about asking if she’d like the drapes opened. It’s too dark in here for her, he thought. He started to stand, and his route must have been obvious because her thin fingers grabbed the back of his tunic.

“I don’t—“She started and stopped. Her fingers fell and she struggled into a seated position. “Never mind. You’ve seen it already.”

“Seen what?” He turned towards her fully. “You look the same as ever.”

Hawke ran her fingers over her nose with a sad smile. She reminded him too suddenly of his mother in the last days, when she had finally left the bottle but that sickness had taken its course. ‘My hair, Varric’, she had pulled at its thinning strands. ‘I’ve lost all my hair’.  Hawke looked at him now with a sad smile, as though her beauty could not stand against something as small as a scar.  That was like saying a dragon could be defeated by a nug.

He made a note of that. Maybe it’d work as a children’s story.

“You look—“ Varric groaned, ran his hands across his face.  He pulled open the drapes, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small contingent of Red Jenny’s making their way towards the Chantry. Kirkwall certainly wasn’t getting any less lively with their Champion in bed, and half the town being rebuilt.

He turned to her, with her sallow cheeks, sunken eyes, scar, and that self-deprecating smile he’d seen one too many times in the mirror.

And he smiled.  Because thank the Maker she was here.

He made his way to the bed, by passing the chair until his knees dipped the mattress.  He could see Hawke’s eyes, wide as saucers—and it was so nice to be the one on that side of the look for once—as his arms closed around her back. He wasn’t a hugger, normally, but he gripped Hawke with every intention of not letting go.  She smelled like ozone with a hint of spice, like magic, and underneath that there is the telltale scent of vellum and the baking sun.  Like Isabela would say, if it smelled like a Hawke, and it looked like a Hawke, it was probably a Hawke. 

His fingers made their way from the bandages at her waist to her uneven hair, and he found that his hand was the perfect size to cradle her skull. Her hands crept around him and she pushed her face into the shoulder of his tunic.

“Don’t stay away so damn long.” She shook. Hawke, who might as well stand in for Andraste in his mind. He wanted to hold her tighter, wanted to lift her face with his thumb on her chin, watch her eyes slip closed, and he wanted. He wanted. Varric wanted like the fire that swept away the Docks, and the center of it started too close to the pink of Hawke’s lips. His heart skipped three beats at the thought of them.

Bianca’s face flashed through his mind and he froze. This was Hawke he was thinking about.  And there were a lot of things Varric was allowed to want: puns, gold, peace, an abundance of torn trousers. But Hawke, Hawke was an entirely different story.

He put that thought with the others – the ones from when she kissed his hand at the beach, the ones where he thought he’d lost her, the little ones from each and every day when Hawke was just Hawke – and locked them all away.

He pulled back with a grin, “You don’t look bad for someone who was briefly cut in half.”

Hawke frowned. “Your compliments set Merrill’s to shame.”

“What’d Daisy say?” 

Hawke pulled back the neck of her nightgown and showed him the print of blue and yellow bruises across her torso.  “She said I always looked nice in blue.”

“Ever the optimist, that Daisy.”

“Yeah, she’s—well she was really great company.” She laughed. “She brought me one of the kittens from the alienage. I think she named him Ink.”

“Ink?”

“He’s off playing with Dog if you want to take a look. They’ve grown quite accustomed to each other.” She leaned in, “I think Dog believes she’s become a mother.”  Her eyes fell to his sack. “Did you bring me a gift, Varric?”

“Maybe.”

“If it’s a moth bitten scarf I’m kicking you out.”

“You already have a dozen, you hardly need another.” He bent to open his sack and pulled out a thick tome. It was beaten, older than he’d like to admit, but a treasure.  His finger traced the words _Lost in Orlais_ with a mix of reverence and petulant disgust.

Hawke, however, had no such qualms. “Did you get this from the Black Emporium?” She touched the edge of the cover. “Because I don’t trust any written object in there. Not since the book bound in human skin.”

“You didn’t like Walter?”

“Not when he started screaming in my ear, no. That was...” She cleared her throat, “Unpleasant.”

“Well you’ll be happy to hear this isn’t from there.” He opened to the first page. “I found it in the market.” It was not a lie either. When he was ten he had found this book in one of the market stalls outside of the Chantry.  It was the first romance novel he’d ever read. 

“There’s a part in it where the main love interest, Roderigo, sets his lover’s skirt on fire because he wants her loins to feel as his do in her presence.”

Hawke’s eyes brightened. “Oh this sounds wonderful. Tell me there are cheesey bits.”

“Of course, as many as possible.”

“Varric, you are a treat.” She reached out to take the book from him, but his fingers held it in his lap.

“I thought I could come by to read it to you each day. Until you’re better.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but Hawke knew him too well to see him for anything except what he was.  He looked into her eyes, and saw her smile brighten.

“I think that sounds wonderful. Goodness knows this place could use some cheer. But,” She laid back down and watched him over the edge of her pillow. “Tell me how it ends.”

“That would be a spoiler, Niamh. I don’t do those.”

“Aw,” She blinked quickly, reminding him more of a horse with a fly in its eye than convincing him to spill the beans. “Not even a little one? I did fight an _Arishok_. And win.”

“Using that one already?”

She shrugged. “I’ve got to use what I’ve got.”

He sighed. “Well the guy’s an idiot.”

Hawke snorted. “Per usual.”

“He doesn’t realize—I should say refuses to acknowledge he loves her until chapter five.  And by then she’s given up on him.”

“Sounds like a smart girl.” Hawke raised an eyebrow. “An unusual love interest, though.”

“You’ll love her. Her jokes are almost as bad as yours.” Hawke thumped him in the arm, and winced. Her fingers crept to her side as she let out a slow breath.

“But are they happy?” She asked.

“That I won’t tell you. It’s not a story if you know the end.”

“Oh, bah-hum-bug. Story tellers and their rules.”

“Varric.” A voice called from the doorway.  Anders, in his feathered glory, only looked half as tired as the last time he saw him bent over manifesto notes.  But the surprise on his face almost makes the gauntness of his cheeks seem normal.

“Blondie! If it isn’t my favorite blond apostate.”

“Aren’t I the only blond apostate you know?”

“Just because you’re my favorite by default doesn’t mean you don’t have good qualities. Don’t sell yourself short, Anders.” Varric pulled back in his chair and pat Hawke’s arm. “I’m guessing you need the old girl—“ Hawke made a loud noise and he felt another soft thump against his arm, “a look over. Her side’s been hurting her.”

“Hey!”

Anders frowned. “Have you been moving around?”

“I can’t stay in this bed forever.” Hawke groaned.

“You need to stay in it until your side has healed enough where we don’t have to worry about you breaking in two every time you walk somewhere.”

“I’m durable.”

Anders threw up his arms, a sign that this argument has been had too many times. “Which is the only reason you’re alive! Let’s not push it.”

Hawke opened her mouth to say something, but Varric nudged her with his elbow. “Stop being a bad patient.”

“I’m delightful.”

“You’re loud.” He placed the book on the bed. “And the sooner you stop pestering Blondie the sooner we can get you back in the Hanged Man.”

Hawke’s face went from hard to soft before she nodded. She was not usually so complacent. Honestly, he’d expected a full argument against his point, with bullet points and maybe a graph if he was particularly unlucky, but her sallow appearance said more than she had to.

“I’ll let Blondie take care of you.”

“You’ll be back to read the first chapter after.” She didn’t ask, but she sounded unsure. As though he could walk out of here, even if he wanted to, after seeing the look on her face.

“Of course. With chocolate if Orana is feeling generous.”

Hawke smiled and he really wished his stomach would find a way to stay still when she did that.

He made his way to the door, and turned, just once, to see her fingers running over the cover of his book.

\--

 


	4. Saying Goodbye (Basorexia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric and Hawke confront their feelings. . .sort of.
> 
> Takes place after Act Two but before Act Three

Her mother had taught her many things. Hawke’s favorite was how to slip her fingers into a pocket without anyone seeing. Mother might not have been a mage, but her fingers were magical.

Carver had been taught to bake a cherry pie. He’d never have admitted it, but she’d never seen her brother as at ease as he was with his fingers kneading dough.  And the mere thought of the taste when it was all said and done, warm and gooey with just a hint of spice, made her mouth water.

But it had been Bethany who learned to dance on their dusty floor in Highever. 

It had been the shortest they’d ever stayed anywhere, but her memory of it was clear.  Father, in his chair, with a new found lute on his lap.  His fingers lightly pricked at the strings, and though he never spoke of where he’d come from or what he’d done, he’d played the instrument with the ease of any bard.  Carver, less rhythmic, but with a wide toothy smile, had slapped his knees in his very best attempt at mimicking a drum. All the while mother taught Bethany to dance.

There had been few times in Hawke’s childhood in which she was truly envious of her sister, but watching Bethany’s faded pink skirt flitter and fly as her mother led her in the ‘Ladies Waltz’ was one.  Mother had twirled her, giggling when Bethany placed her feet on top her own, and gliding across their floor like a lark on a breeze.  Hawke had never been the type for dancing like that, the graceful kind like mother and Bethany, but for a single moment she had wished she was. And Hawke had wished to dance, to flutter around at balls with mysterious men. To do what Mother had clearly seen in Bethany, but never in her.

Had she known a decade later she’d be following another ridiculous, pampered Lord up and down the floor to the Ladies Waltz she would have told her younger self to kindly shut up and count her blessings. Dancing was terrible, and the partners were worse.

And she meant that in the most polite way possible.

Saving Kirkwall was supposed to be a blessing. Hell, being _Champion_ was supposed to be a reward.  But waltzing around the grand ballroom of yet another Hightown mansion at the behest of another social climbing Lord was no such thing.  This was her fifteenth match since she’d found she was able to walk. 

Lord Permouth, a young, entirely too shiny and entirely too bright, noble had visited her house three times a week for two months until she finally agreed to attend his ball.  And it was Aveline, _Aveline_ of all people, who had insisted she make an appearance to highlight her Championness, and keep two certain apostates, a pilfering pirate and an ex-slave, safe from Meredith’s grabby hands.  There hadn’t been much argument from her after that.

And so she had attended ball after ball, swatted groping hand after groping hand, and dodged unwanted kisses from suitor after suitor. To be quite honest, it was becoming something more of a routine than a punishment, like cleaning out the horse stalls, or helping Mother with Carver’s nappies. Gross, unwanted, annoying, but nonetheless normal. 

Over Lord Permouth’s shoulder, she saw the familiar cut of blue velvet and a patch of smirk worthy chest hair out of the corner of her eye.  Varric had been entirely too willing to come to this party, she believed he had said something to the tune of ‘I’ve got to see you on your “best behavior”’, which had resulted in a questionable conversation about what those two words meant in Hightown, followed by Aveline’s loudest, most exhausted sigh.

Lord Permouth spun her again, smiling charmingly as his too beautiful, too blue eyes bore into her face. It was like staring into the Maker forsaken sun.

His nose was straight and simple. Not curved, crooked and scarred across the middle. Not interesting, as Merrill would say.  Strangely, she finds his handsomeness too lacking.

She peered up into his eyes. He was so tall.  When he smiled, to see that telltale twinkle she had to tilt her neck up in the oddest way. She was so used to looking down, or ahead at the very least. It created an uncomfortable crick in the base of her neck just above her shoulders. 

He was too pretty, and worse, he was _kind_.  The other suitors had been grabby, but Lord Permouth kept his hand gently secured around her waist while letting her palm rest gently in his hand. It was so cordial, so tongue achingly _good_ that if she weren’t Hawke she wasn’t sure what she would think. 

Perhaps something sordid, if this were one of Varric’s novels.

Speaking of said dwarf. She peeked over Lord Permouth’s shoulder, seeing Varric shooting her his easy wide smile.  She smiled back, in between one turn and the next, and withheld her instinctual desire to make a choking face as she normally did at these dances. She could be a polite, graceful young woman.  At least for one night.  Maybe.

Well they certainly wouldn’t be able to say she didn’t try.

The music changed, not ending the waltz but transforming it into a fast mixture of an Orlesian trot and Rivani Beguine.  Permouth, of course, led her gracefully from one turn to the next. Permouth—Duncan, she should call him, he had insisted—lifted her hand and spun her until the room was a blur of rainbow colored petticoats and dinner jackets so bright and warm that she had to close her eyes just to catch her breath.

Duncan stopped her, and she felt it before she even opened her eyes.  Some might argue that you couldn’t feel a look, but she knew the feel of amber warm against her skin—knew that when she opened her eyes she would see Varric looking at her. 

Her eyes opened, and for a brief moment she saw Varric frown. His hands were clenched in tight, gloved fists.

“Niamh?” Duncan took a step back. Only then did she realize she had stopped dancing. 

“I’m sorry Lord Permouth—Duncan.” She corrected when he opened his mouth to insist _again_.  “I must speak with my friend.”

“Is Serah Tethras alright?” He took a step to follow her, but she threw up her hands.

“He’s fine! Great!”

“He’s alright?” Duncan cocked his head to the side.

“Yes—I think.” Hawke smiled, and backed away. “I’ll just have that word I mentioned.” Before she could scamper to the corner where Varric stood Duncan took her hand—bowed, _bowed_ in front of the entire room full of people—before kissing her wrist.  Although there was blood pumping through her ears a thousand miles per hour—over the hush that fell over the crowd she heard one especially surprised woman exclaim, “Oh my word.”

His eyes glanced up from the veins in her wrist to her eyes. “Perhaps I might have the next dance.”

Running her hand over her face, mortification was not her color, she grimaced.

“Unfortunately, Lord Permouth, I believe I have the next dance.” She turned, her hand still held in Duncan’s, to see Varric bowing at her side. “If Hawke wants to, that is.” 

Several more of the other ball attendees broke the stunned silence with shocked gasps. 

Hawke lifted her hand from Duncan’s grasp and placed her hand in Varric’s.  So much for behaving properly, she thought.  In the next week there would be a thousand rumors about the Champion of Kirkwall, and her dwarven lover disrupting the ball.

She’d feel a little less guilty if that bothered her at all.

Much to her surprise Varric took her hand, and instead of spinning her around to begin the dance he was leading her off of the blasted dance floor and out into the great hall.

Once they were a safe distance away—where exactly they were headed she wasn’t privy too—and once she had blinked the stars from her eyes, she focused on Varric’s back. 

“If you’re trying to pull my arm off, you’re only half succeeding.”

He continued pulling her down a dimly lit corridor, where the numbers of guests dwindled and dwindled until there were none.  The only sound was the click of their shoes against the marble floor before they reached a great white door.

She thought to ask how he even knew where this particular place was until she saw his lock picking equipment peeking out of his sleeve.

“Are we robbing Duncan—Lord Permouth?” She chuckled. “If that’s what this was all about you could have just said.  You had me thinking something was—“ Varric pushed open the doors without flourish.

A library. Unexpected. But perhaps useful?

Lights glinted off the array of bound books lining the shelves along the walls.  The fireplace had been kept fully stocked and burning, but in a house as large as Duncan’s she imagined they had to be. 

“I didn’t bring you here because I wanted to--” He paused, going back out the hall to grab the handles to the door. “Well I suppose we could steal something.”

“From our fair friend, Duncan?” She chuckled. “Perish the thought.”  She made her way to the velvet chair by the fireplace and picked up the book on the table beside it. _The History of the Anstrastian Faith in the Southern Reaches_ , she picked up the book and cringed as she flipped through.  It didn’t look horrible, but the book was nine hundred pages of unabated, precise text describing the rise and repercussion of the Andrastian faith throughout the south.  A man of faith she could understand, but there were notes in this book, cleanly written handwriting in the margins of every page. He was as pious as a Chantry Sister.

That was it.

Duncan Permouth was terrifyingly perfect, and she was utterly shocked that no one had stopped him from committing such a crime against humanity. Especially in Kirkwall.

“That’s it.” She flipped the book shut and put it back on the table. “He’s perfect.”

“Yeah.” Varric’s voice was soft under the crackling fire as he kneeled on the floor by the door.  “He’s perfect alright.”  He mumbled something else, something not entirely audible, but that makes his shoulders hitch and his back curl towards the door and away from the room.

She had the distinct feeling that she missed something important.

“What?”

“I said,” Varric cleared his throat and turned towards her with the most serious look on his face, “maybe you should stop chasing every suitor off with a stick.”

It was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but Hawke busted out laughing.  Of all the things, she certainly hadn’t expected Varric to be of the ‘settle down train.’ It didn’t even make sense! Clearly, discounting his face, he was completely joking. He had to be.

By the time she stopped laughing, when her breath was coming in short, twitching gasps from her abdomen and she had wiped a tear from her eyes she found Varric still looking at her—through her. Not…laughing.

“You’re serious?” Hawke tickled the thought with her mind, but still found it to be too distasteful. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m not joking Hawke.” He grinned, but it was all wrong.  His lips were too thin and the skin at his cheeks didn’t pull in a way that she has known with her own fingers.  There was no sparkle in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

She fumbled to think on her feet. “Of course I have—just not with some stuffy noble.”

“Lord Permouth is perfect.”

“Perfect my arse!” She shot back. “I’m not standing in some dank hall with him. I’m here with _you_.”

Varric shot back, just as quickly, angrily. “Well maybe you shouldn’t be!”

She took a step back, and couldn’t help her eyes from twitching to the fireplace.  This seemed too much like a Fade nightmare to be real, but there was no eerie glow to the fireplace. When she shut her eyes Varric did anything, but disappear.

“Hawke, I get that we’re friends but you need to think—“

“Friends?”  She opened her eyes to see him nodding. His fingers looked like they were itching to touch something, but the butler had taken Bianca as soon as they walked through the door.

“Yes, Hawke. But you can’t spend all your time in Lowtown gallivanting with me—us.” He shook his head. “You’ll get lonely.”

“I have you.”

Varric turned, and she watched the rigid line of his back tense and smooth in an instant. When he turned to her, he was no longer Varric, he was the coin slinging dwarf who kept his rooms at the Hanged Man.  He was, she realized, meant to be a stranger to her. “Not a friend, Hawke.” He rolled his eyes in playful splendor that felt heavy and flat. “A lover. Someone who will be there for you—“

“You are there for me!” She shouted, and she meant it and didn’t all in the same breath. He was being ridiculous—obscene—if he thought, if he didn’t know how she felt. “After the battle with the Arishok, you came to me. You looked at my face.”

“And I always will, but that’s not the same—“

“How is that not the same? You’re there for me when I need you— _always_.” His mouth opened and she cut him off with a look. “You’re the only person in bloody Kirkwall who makes me laugh every day. You’re always there. You were the only one that came when mother—“ Her throat tightened as though catching on the edge of a scream, and she had to stop. But he _knew_ this.  He must. It wasn’t a secret to anyone, anyone who would ask her.

“You need someone who’ll be there for you with all of himself.” He came a step closer and she thought she might actually collapse.  Varric, the damned martyr, made his way to her so that she could see him in complete clarity.  Easy eyes turned wet, and soft. And the smile on his face was bitter like she had felt, but not seen.  She knew what it felt like, had felt it slip onto her face when she thought of her family and how she couldn’t—was never strong enough to save any of them. How he could think that he’d ever disappoint her like that she’d never know. She’d tell him in a way that wouldn’t float right through him.

“And you have been.” Hawke gathered herself, and the bullheaded courage that had sent her raging against a nest of teething dragonlings, and crossed to Varric in three easy strides. 

“Hawke, you don’t even know what you need.” He said. And when he was about to go on, presumably tell her about all the things she deserved and should have, she tilted up his chin up.

She didn’t kiss him—not at first. Instead, Hawke drew her nose down his, down the curved bridge and wide tip until her lips hovered above his.  She wouldn’t kiss him—couldn’t if she wanted to after five years of maybes and almosts, but she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted another person.

And she waited a moment, unsure and unsteady but wanting.

Until she heard him let out a shuddering warm breath against her lips and pull back. She shut her eyes tight and attempted to hold back the wave of disappointment.  She had thought--

It didn’t matter. She was wrong.

Hawke did her best to put on a smile, although it was as soggy as Fenris on his third glass of wine, when she felt wide fingers in her hair, pulling her down.

It was by far the chastest kiss she’d had in her adult life, and the one that meant the most.  She had read in that ridiculous novel Varric sent her, that a kiss could feel like it lasted a minute, an hour, a year—which at the time she had called horseshit and demanded a real person’s account. She’d still, stubbornly, push back against that idea. 

It wasn’t that she didn’t feel time pass, or that the crackling fire fell away into a soundless hum.  She felt every second with every sense, the glowing warmth of the fire on her skin. Varric’s lips chilled against her. The errant taste of strawberries and the blinding blackness behind her own eyelids.  And her favorite, the almost velvet feel of Varric’s tunic beneath her fingers—scratch that. Second favorite, it was a damn good kiss.

Looking back at the moment, she couldn’t tell if she was so focused on not swooning from said wonderful kiss or if she just couldn’t muster up one fleeting fuck to give, but either way it wasn’t until she heard Duncan’s sharp gasp that she realized the doors were open.

“Pardon me,” He frowned. “I thought—well, never mind Serah.” Duncan nodded at Varric. When he looked to Hawke, his blonde head seemed to droop. “And you as well Champion.”

Lord Permouth turned quickly and made his way from the room and closed the door with a click.

Hawke groaned, sure that word of this would spread, but she was light as a feather. She could skip through Darktown handing out puppies (provided she could convince people not to eat them) because she was so damn happy.  The feeling stretched through her, rolled like waves across her skin, until she was sure that it wasn’t the fireplace lighting the room but her own smile.

A damning cliché, but if her happiness was damning then she’d embrace it this one time.

“I think this might be the best ball I’ve ever been to—and yes, before you ask, I am counting the one with the enchanted candies.” She turned to see Varric and couldn’t have smiled any wider at what she saw.  Breathless was a beautiful look on him, especially as his thumb ran across the swell of his lower lip.

But when he noticed her eyes on his he flinched, like an errant arrow had been shot too close to his head.  He _flinched_.

Maker, he _flinched_ at her.

“I don’t—“ He started. And if this were any conversation she would give herself a round of applause for making the story teller go silent. Now she just felt sick.“Hawke, I don’t know if this was a good idea.”

She nodded. Plastering on a smile of her own as she steped back. “It’s alright.”

“Hawke—“ His gloved hand reached for her and she could no more withhold the full body flinch than become a dragon and fly away from this bloody situation.

“Please don’t.” It was all a little too _Hard in Hightown_ for her tastes. No, she’d like a nice quiet night at home with Sandal. Perhaps crying her eyes out. With wine.  You know, a quality evening. “I’m not quite feeling well, Varric. Please give my regards to the Duke.”

“Lord.” He corrected, probably without even realizing it.

“Whatever.” She turned back as she reached the door. “Let’s forget this ever happened tomorrow, shall we?”

 


	5. Saying Goodbye (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric and Hawke prepare to say goodbye at the end of Act Three.

Varric blinked up at her once, surprised and in awe all in the same instance.

For a moment she was Andraste at the pyre as she burned with her head turned up towards the Maker. He almost fell to his knees at the sight, weary as he was. His fingers trembled and his mouth went dry before his vision corrected.

Hawke, short black hair ruffled against flames as Kirkwall burned. She was all he could see.  Andraste and Hawke and Kirkwall burning. He wondered if his parents had felt this much regret when they were forced to leave Orzammar.

“Varric!” She shook him again and his eyes snapped to hers. “Now is not the time for nug feasts or dwarven barmaids.”

A witty quip was on his tongue, but it died when he looked into Hawke’s eyes.  There was determination, surely, but with something warmer than the flames at her back.  He kept picturing Andraste and Hawke, and feeling both of them drifting away from him.  She was at once, too tender, suffocatingly real, and too distant.

“I have to leave.” She took his face in her hands as he started to protest and covered his mouth with her ash ridden palm. “Someone’s coming after all this, and when they get to the bottom of it they’ll find me.”

“Hawke, we can—“

“Varric.” He’d never seen her look this serious before.  There was just a little droop to the hard line of her lips. “I have to go.” She removed her hand from his mouth and placed it on his shoulder, touching him in that light and familiar way that made his bones ache.  In a way that felt like home. “Are you coming or staying?”

His mouth went dry. It was too easy to imagine them crossing the sea, hiding from Templars, pillaging pirates: Hawke’s Adventures Continued: Seaside.

It’d make a good book.

But he looked around at the wreckage of Kirkwall, his sooten citizens and felt their grief bite like a sword to the stomach. This had been his home, the place where he could hold himself together. He wasn’t sure he could trade home for another.

He cracked a smirk, and her hands fell from his shoulders. She knew, but he still had to say it.

“I’ve never been much good on the sea.”

“You puked the whole way back from Orlais.” He let out a soft snort. That wasn’t an exaggeration. 

“Plus someone’s got to start putting Kirkwall back together. Not to mention throw the Seekers off your trail.”

She nodded. “Of course.” Her expression fell, and a hand along with it to rest against his neck.  Light sprang to her eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that they were wet.

“You’ll be fine without me, Hawke.” He wasn’t sure if he said that more for himself or her, but she stepped back all the same. Red light caught the short bob of her hair, chopped unevenly by haphazard swords.

“We leave the docks at dawn.” She paused, twisting her fingers in a way that seemed so foreign from the sure, laughing woman he’d grown to know. “You’ll be there.” It was half a question. One that twisted his stomach in five different directions.

He tried to imagine it, him sitting at the dock and watching her scar disappearing into the pink dawn.

He tried.

 But his fingers clenched into tight fists and he felt sick.  Varric had known, in some small way that all writers do, that their story would come to an end.  They couldn’t run around Kirkwall getting into trouble forever.

Although he had sort of hoped against hope that they would try. 

Varric peered up at Hawke, watching her as she haphazardly swayed on her feet. Her face was too open—too honest with all the things they hadn’t spoken about in the past two years.  The world was collapsing—Kirkwall was falling—but the thing he felt most in that moment was the sting of regret for being too much of a coward to follow his heart. 

Again. 

And he felt another wave of guilt in his stomach, worse than a kick by an errant Templar, because he knew that he could not sit on the docks and wave goodbye to the woman he loved. The façade they had set up, that they’d both been careful to maintain since that night at the ball, would fall. He’d introduced himself as a liar, but he couldn’t lie about this anymore. And when he failed it wouldn’t just be him that hurt.

It’d be her too.

He couldn’t do that—he wouldn’t.  Hawke deserved a hell of a lot better than a broken hearted memory of the man she was too foolhardy to realize she never should have loved.

When he looked back into her eyes, he knew that she already knew his answer by her trembling lip.  That was why he kept his romance in novels.  It hurt less that way.

“You’ll be alright without me seeing you off.” He tried to joke, but his voice was flat—overcompensating for the scratch of tears in his throat.  Dammit.

“Right.” Hawke nodded. “Hardly a reason to get out of bed, really. I wouldn’t if it weren’t for the Templar’s on my arse.” She hit him in the shoulder with her elbow, and his shock at the action made him elicit a wet laugh.

“They are a bit annoying that way,” He motioned forward and they made their way through the streets.

“Yeah.” She chuckled. “I guess they are. But if you change your mind. . .”

“The docks at dawn.” He winked.

Hawke smiled, saluted and turned away.  Presumably to head up the steps towards Hightown, but she didn’t make it a foot before her back went rigid and she stopped. 

She turned on her heel. Her face had been wiped of the façade, and he found her cheeks wet with freshly cast tears. “Varric. I—“ She stared at him before clearing her throat. “I’ll miss you.”

He didn’t know what to say. ‘I’ll miss you too’ wouldn’t catch the gravity of the Hawke shaped hole in his life.  The only words that were left were two years too late.

“But don’t tell anyone—I won’t have them thinking I’m going soft.” She turned back on her heel towards the Amell estate. “Take care of yourself.” And with that Hawke set off to go, and it was instinct more than thought that made him call out.

“Hawke."

She stopped.

If he were writing this story this would be the grand culmination. She—the Hawke who was always and never Hawke. The Amandala’s, princesses, street urchins who had been her doppleganger’s in his novels—would run to him, and he would fall to his knees for her. 

The Maker wasn’t as kind with his writing. But if Varric learned one thing from staying by Hawke’s side, it was that people make up their own stories—endings—everything in between.

All he had to do was say what he wanted.  He just had to be brave enough to let himself be happy.  The words tensed in his mouth, and for all his momentary bravery he nearly choked.   But not asking—he’d tried that with Bianca and to be honest it had been one of the worst decisions of his life.

“Hawke I—shit.” He rubbed his palms against his eyes.  This shit was easier to write than it was to say. “You know that I—“ Fuck it.

Varric took three steps towards her. He could have kissed her—it might have been romantic to do so, but he wasn’t going to confess in the ruined arches of their home.  Nor was he going to be the coward he was years ago.

“I’m coming.”

Hawke’s eyebrows arched before she narrowed her eyes in confusion. “You’re coming to Hightown—because right now might not be the best time to—“

“No.” He shook his head and held out his hand. 

Hawke stared at it like a dead thing. “What are you doing?”

Varric sighed. “Trying to tell you I’m going to follow you to the damn ends of the Earth. There’s no story in Kirkwall without the Champion.”

“You’re after another story?” She chuckled, a little bitter. “I think I might be all storied out after this, Varric.”

He shook his head.  This wasn’t about the story—had never really been about the tale of the champion.  “Good thing I’m not coming for the story.”

“No?” She raised her hand and let it hover above his.

“No.” He sighed again.  Varric tried to be flippant—to say this as easily as ‘let’s have another game of Wicked Grace’, but it didn’t work.   “I’m coming for you.”

“Yeah?” Her hand fell against his.

“Yeah.” He rubbed his fingers over hers and experimented with interlacing them together. Turned out they were a perfect fit—who knew? “I’m not confessing to you in the middle of a warzone—“

“Well it certainly sounds like it—“

“Because I don’t want you to think that this is a reaction to watching Kirkwall go to shit.  But I am telling you that if you want—I would like to try. Preferably in a city somewhere. Maybe with Dog, and your sister to come with us. Sunshine would keep me on my toes.

Hawke laughed, loud and wet and whole. The sound rang off the buildings, and was the only thing louder than the crackling flames in the distance.

 He shrugged. “Wherever you are is exactly where I want to be.” He didn’t have the nerve to look at her.  Two years was a hell of a wait, and there was no guarantee she still wanted him anymore.

“Yeah.” She tugged on his arm until he stretched their interlaced hands towards her mouth. He would have protested—soot and lips didn’t make the best combination—but she smiled at him. He was lost—how he ever pretended not to be he didn’t know.

She pressed the lightest kiss to the back of his hand, before tugging him up the steps to Hightown and then wherever else.

Anywhere with Hawke sounded like home.

 


End file.
